BOSTON – Sen. John Kerry, escalating
the debate over attacks on his military record by a group of Vietnam veterans, yesterday called the organization "a front for the
Bush campaign."

Sen. John Kerry

"The fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything that you need to know – he wants them to do his dirty work," Kerry said at a firefighters' convention in Boston. "The president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that."

Contrasting his combat tour with President Bush's stateside stint in the Texas Air National Guard, Kerry returned to a refrain he took from his rival last fall: "If he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring it on."

The response from Kerry, which some in his camp have been pressing for since the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched an attack ad two weeks ago, was accompanied by a new television spot featuring the man he rescued from the Mekong River during the war.

Kerry's sudden shift of attention to an issue that has been simmering for weeks illustrates what has been a critical dynamic in this campaign from the start: Kerry's ability to invoke his combat experience to challenge Bush on issues of national security.

Even Democrats say Kerry has little chance of defeating Bush if he cannot present himself as a credible wartime president, and the attacks on Kerry's combat experience go to the heart of that appeal.

A new CBS News poll shows Kerry's support among veterans has slipped since the Democratic National Convention. Shortly after he accepted the nomination, Kerry was tied with Bush among veterans at 46 percent, but the CBS poll shows Bush well ahead, 55 percent to 37 percent.

Bush's campaign yesterday continued to deny any connection with the anti-Kerry group, a 527 committee that operates independently under the new campaign finance rules.

"Senator Kerry knows his accusations are false," Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the president's re-election effort, said in a statement yesterday. "Senator Kerry knows President Bush has called his service in Vietnam noble. Senator Kerry knows that President Bush has said he would like to see all the 527 advertising stop."

MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, is airing an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War.

John O'Neill, a leader of the anti-Kerry group of veterans and the author of a newly released best-seller about the senator, "Unfit for Command," said Kerry "is fleeing down the river from the facts."

"We are responding and dealing with something that is deeply personal – our own record and the record of our unit in Vietnam," said O'Neill, a Dallas lawyer who has been Kerry's nemesis on the war since the two men tangled on national television in 1971. "We regret that he uses ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with the actual facts. He is doing that because he can't deal with the truth."

Kerry, who was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his four months of service in Vietnam, has been criticized over the circumstances surrounding his medals since his first Senate campaign in 1984. This year, he has deployed his crewmates to testify to his heroism, but Kerry continues to be dogged by attacks from veterans like O'Neill who served in other swift boats at the same time.

In the advertisement and in the book, the swift boat veterans, who were incensed by Kerry's anti-war activity upon returning home, question whether he deserved his medals.

However, new questions emerged yesterday about the veracity of Kerry's critics. In their ad, the group disputes Kerry and his crew, saying the Bay Hap River mission on March 13, 1969, in which some of the group's members took part, involved a mine explosion but no small-arms fire. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the medal citation for one of Kerry's critics, Larry Thurlow, says he came under small-arms fire during the operation.

Thurlow said yesterday that he was certain the information for his citation came from a false after-action report filed by Kerry. "To this day, I can say without a doubt in my mind, along with other accounts from my shipmates, there was no hostile enemy fire directed at my boat or at any of the five boats operating on the river that day."

Kerry's campaign had offered a piecemeal effort to debunk his critics' accusations, challenging the veterans' credibility. But yesterday, the newly coordinated campaign issued a packet of Kerry's military records and organized a 50-state blitz of veterans vouching for his service in calls to radio stations and letters to newspapers.

The testifier in chief is Jim Rassmann, the former Green Beret whom Kerry rescued in Vietnam and who surprised Kerry by showing up on the campaign trail in Iowa in January to share his story. Kerry's new 30-second ad – which will run for a week in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin – features Rassmann saying, "When he pulled me out of the river, he risked his life to save mine."

Mike Russell, a spokesman for the anti-Kerry group, said its original 60-second spot had a $550,000 one-week run in seven midsize markets in the same three battleground states, and that the group would unveil a second advertisement today. He also said 10,000 people had donated a total of $450,000 to the effort over the Internet this month.

Kerry complained that the ads are "funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas," a reference to a Houston home builder, Robert Perry, who donated $100,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, according to IRS records dated Aug. 15. The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that Perry, a major Bush supporter in the past, has since contributed another $100,000.

Stephanie Cutter, the Kerry campaign's communications director, said the senator decided Wednesday night to respond to the attacks hours after receiving a mixed reception at a convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars. Many veterans interviewed there discussed the charges from the swift boaters' ad and book.

"When somebody's attacking your military record you reach a boiling point, and he reached a boiling point last night," Cutter said. "When you go and fight in a war, when you spill blood for your country, your instinct is to fight back and defend your record."

In his speech to the firefighters, Kerry explained the new strategy by recounting a war story of beaching his boat to confront the enemy.

"More than 30 years ago, I learned an important lesson – when you're under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attacker, and that's what I intend to do today," he said, noting that he carries shrapnel in his leg from the wounds that led to one of his Purple Hearts. "I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America – then, now, or ever."

The Knight Ridder News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.